When he entered office in January 2011, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo set out to create a joint, statewide banking and insurance regulator dedicated to the reformation of the New York financial services industry. Later that year, the state legislature accomplished just that by enacting the Financial Services Law, which married two of the nation's oldest regulatory bodies (the New York State Banking and Insurance Departments) to create one agency with enhanced regulatory and enforcement powers. That agency—the New York State Department of Financial Services (DFS)—opened its doors on Oct. 3, 2011. Almost 10 years later, on Aug. 24, 2021, Andrew Cuomo stepped down as Governor of New York in the wake of a sexual harassment scandal.

In the decade bracketed by those events, the Governor's brainchild rose to become one of the most important financial regulators in the United States. The last 10 years have seen DFS supervise 3,200 financial institutions with combined assets of close to $8.5 trillion—including 1,800 insurance companies with assets of $5.5 trillion—and zealously pursue enforcement actions resulting in over $10 billion in fines and penalties.